Move the Nuclear Weapons Money

The conference entitled “Move the Nuclear Weapons Money” that took place in Basel, 12-13 April, was a particularly encouraging experience. Many possible new avenues for discouraging the arms trade and even nuclear weapons were introduced, and a most impressive list of invited participants was present. It would be hard to determine whether listening to the speakers, or interacting with them between and after sessions was the more valuable. Two German ex-parliamentarians and one from Norway were present, as well as Margaret Kiener Nellen, MP in the Swiss National Council and Fabian Hamilton, British MP for Leeds North since 1997; and many others from a great variety of backgrounds. As well as significant others who came simply to listen to the proceedings. Today I received the official conference report (click or tap to open).

The report speaks very well for itself and for the speakers, though any emphasis was of course that of the writers. In this sense, the conference deserves some additional comment on the specifics of divestment.

One can divest for more than one reason. Divestment is important for reasons of conscience, and it can be important strategically. An example of the former reason was exemplified by the talk of the Quaker, Chayley Collis, of Huddersfield, England. A paper by Rudolf Rechsteiner, President of the Ethos Foundation, dealt with the strategic aspects of divestment. Rechsteiner’s thorough investigation of the effects of divestment—where it might or is unlikely to succeed—was for me the highlight of the conference. So far, only his ppt presentation is available—see website given near the end of this report.

Other outstanding presentations were by Robert Smith, Jürgen Grässlin, and Bärbel Höhn, to mention only three of the many. Höhn’s activism for the Green Party in Germany includes many successes both within and outside of parliament.

Pugwash members will also be interested in the participation of Marzhan Nurzhan from Kazakhstan, who is a member of Young Pugwash and not only gave one of the talks but chaired one of the sessions, and was part of the staff organizing the conference.

As a general comment on the conference, I felt that it was a meeting of fine heads, all or almost all of whom are stuck in the current style of economy, in which money or its absence determines what happens. And that is not unreasonable, because it is the status quo. But I remember the words of economist Mary Kaldor1 in 1981, when she said “You will never get disarmament as long as we have the current form of economy.” It took me years to learn that lesson, but, today, nobody could be more convinced than I am of the truth of what she said. The traditional economy demands arms manufacture, because it doesn’t include a healthy ecosphere as part of its domain, and without arms manufacture, one cannot maximize production and the throughput of raw materials from extraction to their final resting place—a constant economic objective. I intervened after Alyn Ware’s paper, the last on the second day. Alyn had said how good it would be to have the money now used for military production in order to carry out peaceful programs for addressing climate change and achieving sustainability—a sentiment that has often been expressed and is agreeable to peace-loving people. I pointed out that addressing climate change is so urgent that we must not wait until military budgets decline hugely. The necessary funds must be produced by new means, such as issuance of new money from publicly-owned banks at zero interest.